l routine.

And thus one is half inclined to believe that the spirit of the monks
in their prosperous days was not very different from the spirit that
prompts railway extension, and that builds a railway terminus with an
ornamental facade.

And so when one sees prosperity spreading wider and lower, and the neat
villa residences begin to cluster round the knot of ancient buildings,
we must not conclude too hastily that our new wealth has swamped
ancient ideals; probably the ideals of prosperous people do not vary
very much, whether they are monks or railway officials. The monks in
their decadent days have no abounding reputation for virtue or
austerity. One likes to think of them as lost in splendid dreams of
God's glory and man's holiness, but there is little to show that such
was the case.

I do not want to decry the ideas of the monks in order to magnify our
modern middle-class ideals. I do not for a moment pretend to think that
our national ideals are very exalted ones nowadays. I wish I could
believe it; but there is no sign of any particular interest in religion
or cultivation or art or literature or romance. We have a certain
patriotism, of a somewhat commercial type; we have a belief in our
honesty, not, I fear, wholly well-founded. We claim to be plain people
who speak our mind; which very often does not mean more than that we do
not take the trouble to be polite; we should all say that we valued
liberty, which means little more than that we resent interference, and
like to do things in our own way. But I do not think that we are at
present a noble-minded or an unselfish nation, though we are rich and
successful, and have the good humour that comes of wealth and success.

Peterborough is to me a parable of England; it stands for a certain
pride in antiquity, coupled with a good-natured contempt for the
religious spirit--for, though these cathedrals of ours are well cared
for and well-served, no one can say that they have any very deep
influence on national life. And it stands, too, for the thing that we
do believe in with all our hearts--trim, comfortable material
prosperity; a thing which bewilders a dreamer like myself, because it
seems to be the deliberate gift and leading of God to our country,
while all the time I long to believe that he is pointing us to a far
different hope, and a very much quieter and simpler ideal. How little
we make of Christ's blessing on poverty, on simplicity, on tenderness!
Ho